"The Hamptonization of Glover Street"
by Mary Cummings
The Southampton Press, May 26, 2005

Enter the Renovator

During a recent quick tour of the block led by Robert Tortora, who lives near the end of Glover Street and is in the business of renovaiing houses, Mr. Tortora pointed out houses that had recently changed hands and gave an account of his own role in the street's rebirth as a pricey, mostly second-home haven. He said that the sellers, in many cases, were from families with long histories on Glover Street, and he described a pattern: "They sold to renovators, and I sold them to New Yorkers."
 

The 1820 Tucker house, now on the market for $3.1 million.

What makes Glover Street especially alluring is its waterfront on Upper Sag Harbor Cove, an unusual advantage in a location that is also so close to the heart of the village. Oddly enough, the waterfront advantage was missing for many years when the Long Island Rail Road ran alongside the cove on its way from Bridgehampton to Sag Harbor, effectively cutting the Glover Street houses off from the water. Though train service was discontinued in 1939, the tracks were not removed until sometime in the 1950s.

"No one had waterfront," said Mr. Tortora. "Glover was on the railroad tracks, and then it went from junky, next to the tracks, to waterfront."

True, but the transformation from junky to pricey was not instantaneous. Even after the tracks were taken away, Glover Street remained remarkably resistant to gentrification, with even its two corner mansions showing the effects of time and neglect. Waterfront did not carry the same cachet, translatable to cash, that it does today, as a story Mr. Tortora tells illustrates.

One Glover Street property actually remained landlocked after the tracks were removed, he said, because the owner's wife did not jump at the chance when representatives of the railroad offered each resident an opportunity to buy the waterfront strip of railroad right-of-way behind his or her house for $50.

"She said she couldn't decide without talking to her husband," recounted Mr. Tortora. "But the men were anxious to go home and went next door." The neighbor snapped up his strip and hers too, for the royal sum of $100.